Let's be reasonable here; the last open thread was posted back in January, and plot progression has come to a complete halt. Whether it be from a mutual lack of interest, burnout, an inability to find time, or simply not caring anymore, what was once a thriving community is now nearly dead.

My question is, can it, should it, be resurrected?

And if not, would anyone like some closure in the form of a short story, just so that people can get their happy (or not so happy) endings?

I can't speak on behalf of the other mods, but as a player I am very attached to the characters and stories I have created here and many of the players. Technically most of the players remain interested. Realistically, many haven't been active in months.

I'd love nothing more than to move on with the plots, but there are things preventing that from getting started, which are beyond my control at the moment.

Should it come down to it and we have lost the time or interest of the mods and such, it is quite possible for characters to be moved elsewhere for those who do still have interest and desire, which should be considered an option.

I guess I just wonder how many people are still around, actively reading the site and waiting for something to happen?

I'm still popping into the IRC every couple of days. I would say that in a week or so the game will pick up and if not, I'd say we certainly have enough people who want to continue the story to do so in some fashion.

My laptop, which is my only form of internet access, is just about to die since my adapter is in its final throes and prepared to burst into flame any time I plug it in, so this is going to be brief until I get the replacement in the mail.

As it stands, I am being physically and emotionally drained by work right now. I don't have the time or energy to keep up with a game that hardly anyone else seems to be able to keep up with, either. I've already spent many months trying to chase people around, and quite frankly, I don't have the energy for that, either. It's not the environment it started out as, and much as I hate to let negativity win, I have way less enthusiasm for my own project. I used to be eager about maintaining this game, but the fact of the matter is, I'm tired of everything that involves.

I'd like to say that we can keep going, but I am not in any mental state right now to sit down and work on this game. I need to work on real life priorities. I need to find a new job, start preparing to move, on top of working my current full time job. I'd also like to enjoy having a social life, too. I simply don't have the time that I used to. I know a lot of people are in the same position.

But I am also not willing to hand the game over to other people. Selfish as it sounds, I would rather give the game an ending than walk away from it. Yes, this is a community, but it's a project that I built up almost entirely by myself over a year ago. I have spent too much time and energy into creating my vision to simply hand it all over. If people would like to continue their own stories with their own characters in PSLs or a new comm, that's fine -- just not here.

So here's one option I've been mulling over: we'll give you a timeline of what was supposed to happen, then put up a thread for the days before the final battle. Then we can also have a thread for the actual Final Battle, up to the defeat of the archdemon. After that, players will be allowed to post up epilogues for their characters. These could either be detailed, or just the immediate aftermath. Either way, the Blight plotline will be concluded, giving closure to many characters. You would also then be free to take your characters from that point and continue their adventures elsewhere.

Would that be a fair resolution, rather than dragging current plot out for even longer past its welcome? Feedback welcome, though bear in mind that I won't be able to reply for a few days due to the state of my computer.

Allow me to be frank for a moment, because my opinions have been kept silent for far too long.

I believe that it is eminently unfair of you to not only lay claim to the entire game and say that "it's a project that I built up almost entirely by myself", but now that you want to exert control over what is functionally a dead game. This was not a singular vision with you acting as the director, and the rest of us as mere writer peons laboring under your instructions. This was a group project, as all good communities are, and there is not one player in GW who did not aid in shaping its tone, atmosphere or direction of plot. For you to then say that it's all yours and you're not handing it over to anyone ever, is the same as if we all wrote a book together and you publicized it under your name only. Mod or not, it is not your place to say what we do with these characters and plotlines, whether we finish them or not, and your arrogance in presuming that you can will probably continue to put people off, as it has for the entirety of Grey Wardens' activity. I and several others never said anything in the interests of maintaining a peaceful environment, but that point is moot now. There is no environment to maintain peace in.

Furthermore, practically in the same sentence you claim that you don't have the energy to continue modding the game, yet you are still making these claims and laying down commands. Either you are in for a penny, in for a pound, or you stop modding entirely. Half-measures are what led to such fiascoes as the issues with Thais/Dolain-player and the anonymous commenter, problems that were visible and complained about for quite some time but never actually handled. Just because "we're all adults here" doesn't mean there aren't conflicts of personality, or that you aren't obligated to take care of things before they blow up and cause community-wide waves.

That said, I do agree that some sort of closure needs to come to this plotline and its characters, for at least the people who are still nominally present. I'm not certain that a mod-mandated Final Battle is the solution, however, especially since you yourself have claimed not to have the energy to mod such a battle, which would almost certainly require careful mod attention.

Perhaps there are other ideas floating around, from those who still read this comm?

Quite frankly? This is, in fact, my game. I obviously don't claim rights to all of the content and writing contained within, but the various pages and communities are mine. I'm not making any profit from it and running off with your work, either -- so it's entirely different from publishing a book. I'm not saying that the community hasn't made it what it is and that I don't or never have appreciated the effort put in by the members, but the overall plot involving the Blight was an idea created by myself and Coan. We had entire arcs in motion that we developed outside of communal discussion. There have been absolutely no mandates made. I explained my situation, and what I was willing to do to bring a resolution to the game as it stands now.

I'm not saying you aren't allowed to go in whatever individual route you'd like with your characters, but I am saying that I am not willing to hand over my communities and my other work (all of the subpages and information). I wrote, coded, and organized all of the information contained in the mod journal. I am not handing off the things that I have spent hours, if not days, working on. You are very welcome to establish your own separate community as a continuation of your ideas/characters, but the story that was being told by us, guided under our hands, is essentially dead. We had a very long, linear plot line in mind, but at this point, it doesn't look like it will be able to be carried out the way it was intended. If anything, I would have liked for the Sixth Blight to be the first chapter or volume in a much greater story. You can still consider it as such if you choose to move on. Or not -- really, go wild with your characters. I'd just like to close this community.

I would rather not just close things off without giving anyone a chance to resolve plotlines, or see where we had meant to go with the story, but if the preference is that we make no effort at all, then so be it. I was willing to run one last set of threads, but if that's not a suitable suggestion, that's just as fine with me. Keep in mind that it was not at all a command -- it was an option, a suggestion on what I could do to facilitate closure. I don't have any intention of moderating in the long run, though. If that doesn't work for you, tell me what you think will work.

As for the previous fiascoes, I admit I didn't know how to "handle" those situations well. I am only 23 years old, 22 at the time I started this game. I am not a social director or a psychologist or a mind controller. I tried talking with various parties, but people either didn't communicate back, or nothing I said had any affect on behavior. If I had actually removed/banned people at the time, I believed there would have been an even greater explosion. So those were situations handled poorly. All I can do is apologize for how those things went down then, but they're in the past and there is nothing I can do to change the outcome.

I would rather not end this on bad terms with everyone, but if that's how people feel about me or the way I have tried to keep GW going, that's absolutely fine. I can't change your minds or your feelings. I wish you all the best in establishing a new home if that's what you'd like to do. I definitely agree that Dragon Age 2 could bring a new load of story possibilities. It's no longer a setting that interests me, and roleplaying in general has very little draw at this point in my life, but I hope those who wish to continue have a good time doing so. You're all a talented bunch and I really did love it while it was in its prime. But it's become increasingly clear that it's time for me to move on.

I apologize for this wall of text.arandil2011-03-09 07:05 am UTC(link)

For about the second half of the game’s duration, I have been contemplating -- and wavering -- between my desires to quit and given the current standing of the issue that is being discussed, I feel that I no longer have any obligation towards the game and neither to the moderators.

Just as Az had said above, let me be frank. While I appreciate your motivation, effort and originality that was put into the game (at least in the beginning months of it’s life), if it hadn’t been for the sole purpose of the members, I would have quit the game a long time ago. My issues with the game do not just stand with certain people that I may or may not have been able to get along with, but mostly in the things that I’ve witnessed and realized when it came to the moderators and their involvement with the management of the game. Personal issues aside, I will say that how said situations were generally handled throughout the game was the breaking point for me.

I’m not here to tell the both of you how to run a game or give you tips and tricks to make things better the next time you two go about moderating a game, but I will tell you the things that dissatisfied me; you can take it how you want it and do what you will with it. These issues are not something that have just recently been brought to my attention and, quite honestly, they have been largely bothering me for a long time; the only reason I have kept silent until now was simply because I didn’t want to be kicked and therefore cease involvement and interaction with the other members of the game.

The biggest complaint that I have is, as you have mentioned, the way you handled the evident drama that has circled in the game. While I appreciate the fact that you have actually owned up to the fact that you did not approach the situation right (because, yes, adults do have arguments; it’s natural for people to not get along), the reasoning behind your statement wasn’t fair to us. You don’t need a master’s degree in psychology in order to mediate an argument, your age has nothing to do with your ability to talk things out, you don’t have to be a mind-reader to understand what the problem is and, since I am being honest here, taking a last-resort-and-necessary measure to ban people only after hearing the full situation by each party and assessing it fairly can be crucial in a game. These tasks are all part of being a moderator; if you take the “hand’s off” approach, then you’re essentially telling us that you don’t give a shit about your members.

Furthermore, given that you stated this early on in the game, I am amazed to think that you actually held out a hand to these people and expected some sort of response. I will tell you now that after putting up a mod post stating “you’re adults, you should sort yourselves out” has prevented many people coming to you about many different situations regarding issues and drama within the game. In fact, the only time you’ve actually addressed anything is if it was unavoidable because it personally affects you or because you’re present during the time. Although I understand that the anonymous comments have themselves to blame for the following drama, please realize that, despite what you think, we are reasonable people and we feel so strongly about the issue that we have to say something despite knowing the consequences of it. It isn’t right, but sometimes strong feelings get in the way of our judgment.

I’m not, of course, advocating the comments and I neither approve of them, but I will say that I understand their frustration and I understand why they did it.

But, as you mentioned, they are in the past and there is nothing you can do about them in the future. I will not say that this game died entirely of your fault and I won’t put all the blame on you, but I want to make sure you realize the effect you had on us as members due to the attitude that you showed us, an effect that – as a whole – built up over time because if the designated hand of law doesn’t act, opposing parties are left thinking that the parties are individually right in a situation and nothing can get resolved.

Added to that, you claim that you’ve spent months chasing people around to make sure that they’re active and even if that may be true, I don’t see any evidence of you enforcing what comes next after those words. If you don’t receive response of someone’s activity after a certain amount of time, then kick them; if they continue to be on hiatus month after month, come to some sort of agreement so that if they haven’t returned in the specified time, you kick them. They are clogging up the member base, keeping things from progressing and, to be honest, a little disheartening for members who are actually active and regularly post to realize that the moderators aren’t validating their activity checks.

The last thing that I feel I must mention is the simple fact that this game has been dying ever since summer of 2010 and was only truly established in November of last year, yet it hasn’t been closed or even mentioned until right now. As my own assessment of the situation, it would have seemed a bit more tactical to have closed the game down when it was starting to head towards that direction because, while we might have had a few spurts and were still interested in continuing, overall, keeping the game open has only ended in even more unresolved issues, even more drama and even more disheartened feelings about the game. Given the lack of motivation and effort you put into the game during it’s ending days, it seemed to me that the moderators no longer held interest in continuing the game and if that had been established earlier, then we could have resolved the issue faster, could have moved onto better things and no longer have to be burdened with “What is going on with ~greywardens? What are the mods going to do? How long is this game going to last?”

I will note that I have not been the only one to express these opinions and am not the one to notice them first. As I said before, I’m not here to pull judgment on you, neither to tell you what to do or think or anything of that sort; I’m just saying that this is how I felt about the situation and have been carrying this on my shoulders for a long time. Perhaps you can say that it’s a bit of my own personal fulfillment for finally being able to say it out loud and finally having the ability to say it openly instead of regarding these issues in my own head. On that note, I think it’s obvious that I’m officially withdrawing my involvement in this game, even despite the fact that it was essentially closed anyway.

I do still wish you, the moderators, as well as the other members of the game success in their future endeavors and, for many of you, I hope to see you all again at some point for future roleplaying and interaction. It was fun while it lasted and I do truly regret, in the end, it had come to this.

I propose making a new game, for those who are interested. It's something that I want to do, especially in light of the Dragon Age 2 coming out. I think we could wait to see what DA2 brings and than go from there. People can make new characters or bring in some from this game. Details will follow, but for now all I know is that it is a certainty. I will make it happen because I love this setting. I love the possibilities that it entails.

The main thing I would like to say is that I would like to see some element of this game go on. Whether it's a new setting, a new story, a new game, whatever, or something salvaged from this one. I love writing Ordhan, and I love the relationships and story connections I've had the pleasure of forming with other writers' characters.

I can understand not wanting to give up your plot and setting ideas. My first reaction was going to be to ask if you worked so hard on the future plot ideas that you wouldn't want them to go to waste, but after a bit of stewing I can kind of see where it's coming from. And, personally, I think that most of what we as the player base want to see preserved is character-related, which doesn't depend on future stuff. I think a lot of the player base--or at least a good portion of it--are interested, but I don't think it's good for either players or mods to force the mods to continue after they've lost the interest and energy for it.

It would take a lot of work, but I like the idea of transplanting as much of the player-made things as we want/can into a setting compatible with Dragon Age 2. It'd be a fresh start, not stealing any of the mods' future plot ideas, but saving the things that are important to us.

I'm still here! I miss you guys, I miss RP, and stuff my life has slowed down enough recently that I can honestly commit some time to writing again, so as for my input... I'd love to keep playing, whatever that entails. I'm of a mind with Ord as far as our current status and how to proceed, everything she's said above pretty much echoes what I was already thinking.

I'm around as well, and I'm all for maybe starting over with a DA2 themed game, but preserving certain characters and interactions. I would hate to give up Cormac, and I miss RPing. So basically I second what Ordhan and Brennan are saying, lol...if we move on please count me in!

I know I never really got into this game, having left right before a boom and come back only when the lull began, so maybe my opinion doesn't matter, but I think that if this is the end, you guys (we? I'm I allowed to say we?) are kinda pathetic. There's too much awesome here to just throw away, you know.

So I'm still interested in seeing the characters and community built up here to go on, but I don't have the energy in me to spare for RPing a character for now. However, I'd be happy to mod/help mod any sort of DA2 reboot game or whatever people would like to see.

I've already talked to Hughes about transplanting characters, but I just wanted to say a few things in here. I came in the middle of the whole anon drama and things with Thais-s (or what I guessed was the middle) so I don't know a whole lot about it. I don't know how things were handled and I'm not here to say they were handled incorrectly. From where I'm standing (a totally uninformed by stander), things probably weren't handled as best they could be. I know from personal experience as a mod, if an issue arose from one player I would address it with everyone to see if they felt the same and brainstorm a resolution. I'm not going to say that wasn't done here, because I don't know, but I wasn't involved in any such thing. That's my two cents on that.

I loved playing here and I truly loved writing with you all. I have no hard feelings towards anyone and would love to meet you all in any future games. I started role playing horses on some random message board website when I was twelve. I'd forgotten how much more eloquent and creative role playing used to be for me because I moved to playing humans, but this place and all its wonderful writers reminded me of what I'd been missing. I'd been missing the eloquence. Thanks for bringing it back.

Well, I guess that's that. I apologize for not being around - I got promoted, and our department has been a revolving door for people leaving and coming in. People leave, people are brought in who need months of training, there's a new initiative at work, and so on, and so forth. While I'm sad that the game is closed, I suppose at this point it can't be helped.

Also like what Aeolyn states above, I missed all the Thais drama. I think this is probably for the best.

I doubt I'll be importing Dee in the prospective new game...I assume after the events in this timeline, she and Alderic have ventured off somewhere getting into loads of trouble like they always have. But you'll no doubt see me around again, lurking in a different persona. ;)